Hi! I believe that it was 1993. The dust had cleared and the Yugoslavian
had withdrawn a year or two before. Pockmarks from bullets were evident in
buildings and the army invasion was played down. We stayed at the Holiday
Inn in Ljubljana. There weren't many choices then. We thoroughly enjoyed
the city and spent several days there. We never felt scared or threatened at
all. The people were friendly and I remember that down by the bridge [forget
the name] people were selling Russian army uniforms, medals, and other
objects some with pictures of Lenin. Had a great time there and my wife
still talks about how surprised she was at the city itself and its people.
We had been to Budapest the year before and the condition of the city at then
time was pretty bad. The soot and grime on the buildings, pieces of concrete
missing etc. We had expected the same thing and was very surprised.
We then drove to the cave at Postojna and the Castle Predjamski Grad.
The sights were both very interesting especially the cave.
We then drove to the Slovene Istria on the border with Italy. We
stayed at a really wonderful hotel on the Adriatic Sea. The hotel had a
terrace in the room, all whitewashed with blue and white tiles. It faced the
Adriatic Sea and it was great. The hotel was in Piran. a really lovely
place. Piran was formally part of Italy and is a fishing town also. Many of
its restaurants are Italian as well as its architecture. Italians come over
in their boats and buy alcohol at its duty free shop. The owners will only
sell wine, etc., to Italians from the yachts and smaller boats. Very good
wine from the region that we bought also. We really enjoyed that vacation.
We recently returned from the Czech Rep. That's another story for
another time. Except that it was great and VERY inexpensive.
alan